BRISTOL, Tenn. — Frank Beamer has been a spectator, a guest of honor and a green flag-waver at Bristol Motor Speedway. Now, after nearly 17 years of talking about it, he'll finally be a football coach at the track.

Virginia Tech and Tennessee were announced Monday morning in a news conference at Bristol Motor Speedway as participants Sept. 10, 2016, in a long-awaited regular-season football game at the track that could draw the largest crowd in college football history.

A source said the schools will earn payouts of at least $4 million each for the game, with a chance for the payouts to rise as high as $4.5 million each. The game, which will play to a nationally-televised audience, is being billed by the track as the "Battle at Bristol." The track is roughly halfway between the two schools.

"This is fantastic," said Beamer, who will be 69 years old and in the final season of his current contract when he leads Tech into the game. "I've been in (Bristol Motor Speedway) a bunch of times. It's a great place. It's great to watch a car race here, and then to come here and play in front of the largest crowd ever to watch a game, to be a part of that, I mean, that's a special thing for Virginia Tech. I know we'll have this place full."

Beamer added he's attended several NASCAR races at the .533-mile track, which seats 160,000 fans on race days. He was the grand marshal for a race at Bristol in '09, when he got to drop the green flag from the flag stand above start-finish line. He referred to the track as his "favorite sports venue" next to Lane Stadium.

Tech is ranked No. 19 in The Associated Press poll, with a 6-1 overall record and an Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division-leading 3-0 mark.

Caldwell said 150,000 tickets will be on sale for the game. The largest crowd for a college football game was an estimated 120,000 fans in 1927 at Soldier Field in Chicago for the Notre Dame-Southern California game. In September, the Michigan-Notre Dame game drew 115,109 fans to Michigan Stadium.

The Tech-Tennessee game is scheduled to be played two weeks after the traditional running of the August 500-lap NASCAR race at Bristol. Caldwell said the track has consulted with engineers and contractors about the challenges of making the facility football-ready in a short time frame.

"We'll evaluate what makes sense to do in advance as we go along and continue to study this with the contractors, but we've had engineers and contractors from turf companies that said we can do this in probably an eight-day window," Caldwell said. "We'll be able to get that pulled off, as well as everything else. It's going to be quite the choreographed event. Thankfully, we have 2 1/2 years to plan it all."

Caldwell said they've studied sight lines and discussed the need for temporary seating. He said a NASCAR scoring pylon on the infield at the track will have to be taken down, and video screens will be added.

Jones, whose team is 3-3 this season, was a grand marshal at Bristol in March. At the time, he said he couldn't help but ponder the possibility of a football game at the track.

"As a football coach, I walked in and I'm like, 'Wow, what if we had a football game here,'" said Jones, who is in first season as Tennessee's coach after spending the previous three seasons at Cincinnati. "Now, to make this a reality and to be a part of football history is something that's very important to both of our universities, our student-athletes and everything."

Tennessee defeated Tech 45-23 in the 1994 Gator Bowl, and Tech beat Tennessee 37-14 in the 2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl, but the 1937 season marked the last time the teams met in the regular season.

"It's just such a huge undertaking," said Beamer regarding the logistics of getting Tennessee and Tech to meet at a neutral site. "To get two programs, and get them to come to a spot here not in their home stadium but in a neutral spot, it takes some work to get that done."

Not long after Weaver took over as Tech's AD in September 1996, he had discussions with then-Tennessee AD Doug Dickey about scheduling a Tech-Tennessee game. Nothing came of Weaver's talks with Dickey, nor did anything develop out of interactions about a possible game Weaver had with subsequent Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton.

In '05, Speedway Motorsports chairman and chief executive office Bruton Smith was prepared to offer Tech and Tennessee $20 million each to the play the game at the track. No agreement was reached at the time.

The idea for the game started moving forward this past spring and summer when Weaver began talking about it with Hart, who is a friend of Weaver's.

"It never came even close to where this did in the middle of the summer and through (Monday)," Weaver said.

"Dave and I said, 'Why not?' instead of 'We can't.' We worked hard with Jerry Caldwell to put it together, and we're very proud of the outcome."

Around the time Weaver first had talks with Dickey about playing the game, Marcus Smith also remembers sitting and talking about the possibility of a game at Bristol with his father, Bruton, and Caldwell in late track general manager Jeff Byrd's office.

"At the time, it was just a crazy idea, but if you know anything about Bruton Smith he has a habit of making dreams reality," Marcus said. "It's pretty neat to see that come to fruition (Monday)."

BLACKSBURG — After what will be a 79-year gap in regular-season meetings, and at least one failed attempt by racetrack mogul Bruton Smith to make it happen, Virginia Tech and Tennessee finally are slated to meet again in a regular-season football game.

Traffic and sightlines will be problematic at best. Otherwise, Virginia Tech’s 2016 football date with Tennessee at Bristol Motor Speedway promises to be as much an event as game, with record attendance, epic tailgates and Lee Corso wearing headgear.

As trainers carted Jerry Ugokwe off the Unitas Stadium field last November, William and Mary football coach Jimmye Laycock couldn't avoid the thought: His team's entire starting offensive line, a group with so much promise and youth, was wiped out by injury.

Robbie Babb posted his third and fourth victories of the season with a clean sweep of twin 30-lap Modified races, the featured events of Saturday evening’s NASCAR Whelen All-American Series program at Langley Speedway.